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Federation of Free Dixie
Brief The Federation of Free Dixie was established after the War of Emancipation (also called the American Civil War) which lasted from 1831-1835. Origins Slave Revolt, 1831 In August, 1831 Nat Turner’s slave revolt shakes the southern United States. The slave army is defeated in Virginia but begins a guerrilla insurgency and moves south, it’s numbers growing. Thru the end of the year the revolt spreads across the south with various guerilla bases and factions growing. A unified army begins to form as white slave owners are massacred and driven from certain regions that are declared autonomous. The US army however is routinely victorious these encampments and free cities but not able to quell the growing insurrectionary threat. There is also a lack of political will to take the threat seriously as a civil war, some army units are deployed but it is mostly local militias of slave catchers who are quickly becoming outnumbered and maneuvered. War of Emancipation, 1832-1835 As 1832 progresses the south becomes more and more desolate. White slave owners are fleeing en masse to the north as some plantations and rural areas come under the control of the revolt. Capturing cities, however, remains an unattainable achievement. By mid to late 1832 a sizable army begins to form. Some factions of First Nations, most notably Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole resistance to Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal act, join the rebellion. The First Nations use the chaos to establish essentially autonomous states in their homelands. As the war entered it's second year, a joint army of Freedmen First Nations organizes and trains out of a fort on Cherokee land in the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina. This joint army begins to take territory. By the end of the year the biggest victory yet is won at Savannah, Georgia. A new Free State is established with Savannah as it’s temporary capital. An envoy is sent to Port-au-Prince. The society of the US is split on whether to continue the war or not, but Andrew Jackson does not back down. Abolitionists, radical whites, and freedmen in the north are supportive of the cause. Some defect south to join in the fighting, others send material aid discreetly and agitate in the north for ending the war. Despite several attempts to take it back, the rebels hold Savannah and continue to repel USA attacks in the interior. In the early days of 1835 the rebels, aided by sympathetic factions within the city, take New Orleans, but the USA musters most of its navy to blockade the city as an army makes its way down the Mississippi, overwhelming the few rebels outposted along the shores and besiege the city from the north. The siege lasts for a while, but is broken when the Grand Antillean Republic navy arrives with reinforcements and battles the USA in the Gulf. This is a turning point and by the end of the year a ceasefire is signed and the Free Dixie Federation is declared.